Between Love and Hero Worship
by nicnac918
Summary: A Ginny introspective considering how her feels might have grown from hero worship of the Boy-Who-Lived into actual love for Harry.


It started as something like hero worship. More like the feeling you get when you fancy a celebrity than a real person. Ginny can still remember the first time she admitted to that, barely breathing it to Hermione's listening ear, sitting at the foot of Ginny's bed in the fifth year girl's dormitory. It seemed a little silly saying it like that even then, whispering it like it was some great secret and not something anyone who had spent more than five minutes with a ten year-old Ginny would know. But at the same time she couldn't say it any louder, it felt like those feelings were a taint, a drop of ink that would reach forward and undermine any feelings that she had now because of what she felt then, and if she could only say the words soft enough then they still might not be true. Which might seem irrational, but at fifteen and in love she was allowed to be just a little bit irrational.

Hermione, because she was Hermione, responded to that grand declaration with the world's most practical question. What happened next? And if it was anyone else they might not have been sure which next Hermione meant. It could have been the first time she saw Harry at King's Cross Station, or when he showed up at her house that summer, or when he first spoken to her, or when she knew she'd get to be in the same house as him, or any of the other myriad of moments that might have been next. But Ginny was _not_ anyone else and so she knew that next meant the Chamber of Secrets. Where Harry saved you, Hermione assumes, like so many other people have before and since assumed. And Ginny tells her, like she tells all of them, that no, that's not it. And Hermione has always had this way of raising her eyebrows that says she knows you're lying to her and please stop it now. But this is Ginny's story, and this time she knows Hermione is wrong. Next wasn't when Harry saved her, how could it be when Ginny hadn't even been conscious for it? Instead it was the look in his eyes, stark terror melting into naked relief, like he didn't _know_ he was going to be able to save her. It was the way he was all covered with slime and mud and blood. It was the way he seemed beyond exhaustion, like he was too tired to even sleep. It was the way, sword-in-hand, he didn't seem even the slightest bit heroic at that moment. Next was when Ginny realized that before Harry was the Boy-Who-Lived, he was just a boy.

Ginny can still see in her mind the way Hermione nodded at that, like it was an everyday occurrence to realize your childhood hero was really just a normal person. And maybe Hermione did think it was an everyday sort of thing, but to Ginny it was a revelation that slowly began to change everything. It was like the golden glow that surrounded him had faded away and for the first time Ginny could see the real Harry. And the very first thing she realized was Harry was completely reckless. He had rushed into the Chamber to save her with only himself and his wand, and really, wasn't that kind of stupid? The second piece fell into place a moment later, when Ron was squeezing the life out of her and Harry's face lit up like nothing she'd ever seen before. He was stupid and reckless, yes, but only because he'd do anything for a friend.

The next year and a half was full of little realizations like that. Harry had a wry sense of humor. He always had a kind word for anyone who hadn't been rude to him first, but only had a few close friends. He was smart, but not in the easy brilliance sort of way that Ginny would expect from a hero, but in the normal sort of way that she would expect from someone who didn't mind coasting along at just above average. He hated Professor Snape, Draco Malfoy, and being famous, all in about roughly equal measure. He never talked about his relatives, never went home on the holidays, and always seemed sad to leave Hogwarts when summer break came. And even if it was a long time in the future before she knew what that meant, she still took note of it. And for every little thing about him she noticed he became more real, in a way that was so much better than the Boy-Who-Lived could ever hope to be. But, while she pulled all these little pieces together, there was always a voice in the back of her mind that noticed the way he wasn't noticing her.

Ginny doesn't remember telling the next part of the story to Hermione, but then again, maybe she didn't. She wouldn't have to really, Hermione had been there, after all, when Ginny broke down crying because Harry didn't ask her to the Yule Ball, and Hermione was the one who told Ginny she should move on and try to meet other people. And she did try really, and she thought she had managed it. She dated Michael and Dean for nearly a year each hadn't she? And if her eyes strayed to Harry now and again, that's alright because he was still her friend. And if she sometimes compared her boyfriend to Harry, then that wasn't too unusual, was it? And if she felt an anxious coil of jealousy in the pit of her stomach when Harry and Cho were together and a fierce surge of joy when they broke up, then that was no one's business but her own.

And then she had broken up with Dean and ended up collapsed on her bed and having to admit that no matter how her feelings had changed and grown and developed over time she had never really given up on Harry since the first moment she saw him.

Ginny can remember that conversation with Hermione fondly now, seen through the lens of the weeks and years to follow. It had been just under three weeks later that Harry had kissed her for the first time, and she had felt that sweeping wave of rightness settle over her. Then there were the weeks after that: spent kissing, and holding hands, and talking, and sometimes just being together without doing anything else at all, because there was nothing else that needed to be said or done. Then, the year they spent apart she spent the whole time worrying if he was safe and hoping he come back whole and soon, but she never once doubted that he still loved her because she saw no reason to. And if there was a small part of her that never quite forgave him for dying the very same night he came back to her, there was a larger part that reveled in the way it made each moment they spent together afterwards taste just a little sweeter. And there had been a lot of moments.

It started as something like hero worship. She can say that to Harry now with a smile on her face and he'll give her a wry grin in return, as if to say of course it did, but why should that matter. And she knows now that it doesn't matter, not really. Ginny likes to think she's learned a lot since the first time she admitted to that, corny sayings about life, love, and happiness, and true things about little boys who were raised in cupboards before they grew up and saved the world. She learned that the beginning can only be a paved road to the inevitable conclusion if you let it, and far more important than where you start is where you end up going and what you do when you get there. So she can laugh now when George reminds everyone how she stuck her elbow in the butter dish all those years ago, because compared to the smiling faces of all her loved ones surrounding her, and the tears of joy in her mother's eyes, and the love that exudes from Harry like an aura as they both promise to stay together forever, what else could possibly matter?


End file.
